For all future stewards of the earth, and that's all of us, here's a quick quiz.

What is the most renewable and sustainable material with which to build our homes?

How can we turn some of the CO2 we're putting into the atmosphere into an asset?

And how can we make the world more beautiful and green?

The answer to all these questions is trees.

These make up about 90% of all the living biomass on earth.

And forests serve as home to the majority of species on the planet.

We use thousands of products many every day that come from trees.

Some are obvious like wood and paper.

And many not so obvious like microcrystalline cellulose, a key ingredient in many medicines.

Anyway, who doesn't love trees?

Yet trees, especially in the last few decades, have become very controversial.

People are divided into two broad camps.

One group sees trees as a critical source of renewable material and of renewable energy.

This group generally favors planting trees and making use of the many products derived

from them.

The other group emphasizes the value of forests as ecosystems to provide a protected

habitat for threatened species.

This group prefers to see forests off limits to commercial use.

The arguments between these two groups can get pretty heated.

But here's the good news.

If we do it right, we can use our trees and enjoy them too.

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